Funny T-Shirts

RizzoTees on Twitter

RizzoTees' fan page on Facebook

RizzoTees on Friendfeed

RizzoTees on MySpace

Rizzo Tees has one employee - me. My name is Chris, and I operate Rizzo Tees out of my basement (henceforth known as "Rizzo World HQ" or "ManLand"). I have a full-time job, so I work on Rizzo Tees at night. I print, pick, pack, and ship your order myself. I have four industrial shelves filled with 1,400+ shirts. My basement can hold a whole lot more shelving units, and my goal is to grow the business but never grow it out of my basement. I operate the whole business by myself on a MacBook Pro and a couple of printers.

I lied - I do have a little help. I use a local screenprinting company to print all of my shirts, I have a few graphic designers help me vectorize my ideas, and a local web design company built and maintains my site. And my wife sprinkles in the occasional brilliant tee idea.

I sank quite a bit of money into starting Rizzo Tees. But why? Alot of random thoughts pass across my brain (San Francisco has a Chinatown, does Beijing have an AmericaTown?). These ideas are what I think about day-to-day, and I wanted to be able to wear them around. I ended up buying myself some Busted and Snorg shirts for my birthday back in 2007, and realized that my ideas would fit on t-shirts. I learned alot by checking out other t-shirt sites, but these shirts are for the most part my own ideas. When they're not, I've put my own twist on them (like the Home Run King's "756" shirt but with syringes making the asterisk). I have another 500 shirt ideas in the queue, which means I think about t-shirts all the time!

Where did the name Rizzo come from? Honestly, the name appeared before me in a dream, as if some sort of Italian branding apparition. And that's all I needed!

I love interacting with people - customers, people on Twitter, Facebook, blogs. That makes this a very fun business to be in - email me, find me on Twitter and Facebook - talk to me, tell me what's on your mind. The more people I get to "meet," the better. I hope to put alot of shirts on alot of people's backs, but I hope I never have to hire anyone - it's fun being on my own.

Peace to all of you.

Chris
Founder, Rizzo Tees